What was the first British Trade Mark? The Red Triangle of Bass? Well yes and no. Trade Mark Number One was a beer label for Bass & Co.s Pale Ale.
Although it is a generally accepted and much repeated “fact” that the Red Triangle was the first Trade Mark, it was in fact the 914th; so to be precise and somewhat pedantic, as historians have a habit of being, the Red Triangle formed part of the first Trademark. Bass also registered numbers two and three on the same day. In 2013 Bass Pale Ale was relaunched as Bass Trademark Number One. If the current owners of Trade Mark Number One AB In-Bev cannot get their facts straight, what chance does anyone else have?
In late 1875 Parliament finally passed a long campaigned for Trade Mark Act 1875 which came into force on 1 January 1876. This superseded the 1862 Merchandise Marks Act which had offered only limited protection for companies like Bass; since 1862 it was illegal to use another’s mark with intent to defraud but it wasn’t until the 1875 Act that companies could legally register their actual Trade Marks.
The 1862 Act wasn’t without legal power and was used to convict people in the courts; an example being in 1866 when one John Yeomans, a Brewer’s Agent was successfully prosecuted in Brighton for applying the Trade Mark of Bass to bottles not containing Bass’s Ale. He was sentenced to six months in prison.
The Registration process was done at the Trade Mark Office on Fleet Street in London and the story goes that to ensure that Bass was the first company to register their Trade Marks an employee camped out overnight on New Year’s Eve outside. To prove this here is a drawing of the unnamed Victorian Gentleman.
Now if I was this person who stayed up all night on a cold London street, I’d be a little annoyed that my name is not recorded in the annals of history! Add to this that this drawing dates back to the 1960s and not the 1860s led historian Martyn Cornell to suggest that this tale may be fabricated. Nice story though!
What is known is that Bass registered three Trade Marks that day, these were labels for: Bass & Co’s Pale Ale with the Red Triangle, Bass & Co’s Burton Ale (as seen on Ratcliff Ale and the other five Bass Corkers) with the Red Diamond and Bass & Co’s Extra Stout with the Brown Diamond. Along with Bass’ three registrations another 50 or so Trade Marks were registered by other companies that day. It wasn’t until 16 days later on 17 January 1876 that the actual Red Triangle, Red Diamond and Brown Diamond Trade Marks were registered, numbers 914, 915 and 916.
When did Bass start to use the Red Triangle? There is evidence to show that they had been around since the late 1830’s. In 1877 the Manager of Bass’ London Stores a Mr F. J. Thompson commented that the Red Triangle had been used as a mark on casks for forty years, dating this to 1837, note this is on casks not bottles. Following the opening of Bass Middle Brewery in 1853 casks brewed here had a White Triangle to distinguish them from those brewed at the original High Street premises and when the New Brewery opened in 1863 these had a Blue Triangle.
Cask branding was common practice and certainly Bass’ great rival Benjamin Wilson was doing this on casks of Burton Ale that he was exporting to the Baltic in the early 1800’s. I’ll come back to an interesting Benjamin Wilson story shortly …
Although it was registered on 1 January 1876, this wasn’t when Bass started using the Trade Mark Number One label, the Bass Pale Ale label was designed by George Curzon, a Burtonian, in 1855. Curzon came up with the ring of Stafford Knots, the background design and incorporated the signature and Red Triangle. Here is the label that Bass used prior to Curzon’s, as you can see it is for East India Pale Ale and has the Bass & Co. signature but no Red Triangle. The design was simple and therefore easy to copy.
Bass announced their new label with a letter In February 1855 a letter, with an accompanying a copy of the label and it is worth a read.
We beg respectively to call your attention to the annexed fac-simile of a label that we have adopted as the distinguishing mark of the identity of our PALE ALE.
The general imitation of our old label for all sorts of Pale Ale has rather assisted than prevented deception. We trust the one we have now adopted – the figure of which belongs to us as our Trade Mark – will be a means of securing us and the public against the fraud that has been so long and so greatly complained of.
We are, Sir
Your most obedient Servants,
Bass & Co.
Bass hoped that Curzon’s label would be difficult to mimic, but this was not the case as it was noted that when the 1862 Merchandise Mark Acts was passed that the label was already being copied all over the world, the company holding examples from Glasgow, Liverpool, France, Germany and even as far as Melbourne in Australia! The fake labels copied the shape, the Stafford Knot, the Red Triangle or a close approximation was used like a bell. One even went as far as calling themselves Baass & Co! At one time the company claimed to have nearly 2,000 examples of fraudulent labels on file!
Bass famously used to pursue such fraudsters through the courts post 1876 and there are many examples of them doing just this to be found in newspapers and brewing journals, be it publicans using old Bass bottles and filling them with different ale or brewers making near copies of the Bass label.
This unscrupulous business practice of passing one’s beer off as a rival’s was something that Michael Thomas Bass Senior, the father of the then current Chairman, also called Michael Thomas Bass had firsthand experience of. In 1803 he provided 30 unmarked casks of Burton Ale to a Baltic customer along with a metal brand marked “B. Wilson” so that these could be fraudulently sold as Wilson’s ale.
In a letter to the merchant he stated “I should not like any person to know of it.” I bet he didn’t, however it isn’t recorded if Benjamin Wilson ever became aware of Bass’ underhanded practice. I am sure Bass had his reasons for doing this; as I explained in my first talk Wilson at the time was the number one brewer in Burton and Bass wanted to break Wilson’s grip on the market, from the evidence here even if that meant playing dirty.
So back to Bass: now with the Red Triangle Pale Ale label in use, in early 1857 they started to use the Red Diamond label and the Brown Diamond followed in 1864.
I’d like to clear up some confusion that Trade Mark Number One and the beer Bass No.1, are the same; they are not. Trade Mark Number One was for Bass Pale Ale only and Bass No.1 was their premium Barley Wine which was Trademark Number Two. During the 1860’s Bass adopted a numbering system for their beers, with No.1 being the strongest, No.2 slightly weaker etc., with Ratcliff Ale being Bass No. 1.
To confuse matters the stouts with the Brown Diamond were called P2, P3, P4 and P5. There was no P1, could this have been to avoid confusion with Bass No.1, but why P and not S for Stout? It appears that the P stood for Porter and that the terms Stout and Porter were interchangeable back in the 1860s.
Today the Red Triangle is owned by AB In-Bev, making it the longest running Trademark in British history and I think it can claim to be the most famous Trademark in history and was famously painted by Manet in Un bar aux Folies Bergère in 1886.
My blog logo bears no resemblance to the Bass logo, although just to be on the safe side I did write to AB In-Bev and was given their blessing to use it.
Talk originally presented at the Ratcliff Ale 150th Anniversary evening 16 December 2019.